Several mistakes have been suggested:
- He did not demand the entry of Spain on the side of the Axis.
- He stopped air superiority bombing in favor of terror bombing in England.
- He delayed his invasion of the Soviet Union to invade the Balkans and help out Italy in its failed invasion of Greece.
- He underestimated the manpower and resiliency of the Soviet Union (a big mistake).
- He diverted assets from the drive on Moscow in 1941 and did not take it.
- In the 1942 offensive he split his forces in an attempt to take two strategic objectives: Stalingrad and the Caucasus. He made the problem worse by diverting forces from Stalingrad to the Caucasus.
- He refused to let his encircled 6th army try to break out of Stalingrad.
- He did not require Japan to declare war on USSR in return for Germany declaring war on the US (another big mistake).
- He did not suspect that the Western powers had cracked his communication codes until it was too late.
- He was late in sending sufficient troops soon enough to Rommel in Africa. When he did send large numbers, it was too late and he lost them all.
- He often did not follow the advice of his General Staff, particularly in regard to ceding territory to gain room for maneuver.
- He did not commit all his available panzer divisions to the defense of Normandy quickly enough.
- He did not put Germany on a total war economy until 1942 or even 1943.
- He did not put enough resources into the development of an atomic bomb.
- He chose major allies that were of little use to him.
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